A Columbus, Ohio, family said their children were traumatized after what was meant to be a fun trip to the National Museum of the United States Air Force ended with guns drawn on them.

Alice Hill, 65, her daughter-in-law, Wendy, and two young grandchildren visited the museum on April 4 and, as they were leaving, were ordered to get out of their vehicle by military police. Hill said the officers pulled guns on the family and cuffed the adults in front of the children, according to an incident report.

(snip)

The family was detained for about 90 minutes as authorities sorted through questions about whether the van was stolen  it wasn't  and whether they were casing cars in the lot  they weren't.

(snip)

"An initial check of the vehicle plates with the National Law Enforcement Terminal System reported the vehicle as stolen," according to a base statement Tuesday. "Security forces responded as trained, and executed high-risk traffic stop procedures. Further investigation of the full vehicle information number revealed the vehicle was not stolen."

(snip)

"We sincerely regret the fact that their enjoyable day at the museum ended with this high-risk traffic stop," their statement read. "Had the vehicle not originally come back as stolen, this situation would have been resolved with a quick courtesy stop of the vehicle to clarify the initial report."

I once watched them detain a guy in a secure area for having lost his badge. He was about halfway down a 30 ft hallway, kneeling with his hands behind his head.

The air force police were on either end of the hallway guns drawn, pointing at him and incidentally at each other. They were arguing with each other over what to do. One cop would give an instruction and then the other would countermand. The guy in the middle eventually told them to get their f*&!@ act together.

9
posted on 04/11/2014 4:28:19 AM PDT
by driftdiver
(I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)

the initial report was that the van was cruising the parking lot and looking at all the cars in a suspicious manner. It turns out the family was looking at all of the out-of-state license plates. When the MPs ran the license plate after the initial report, it came up as stolen.

The police response, given that information, was appropriate.

20
posted on 04/11/2014 4:46:51 AM PDT
by Haiku Guy
(Health Care Haiku: If You Have a Right / To the Labor I Provide / I Must Be Your Slave)

Well at least they apologized. If it had been civilian cops the women would have been tazed, maybe shot, and the explanation would have been that the police responded in an appropriate manner given the threatening circumstances and the exigencies of the situation. /s/

27
posted on 04/11/2014 4:55:13 AM PDT
by saganite
(What happens to taglines? Is there a termination date?)

The Air Force Museum is just fantastic. If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Dayton, you really should stop by.

You are right about that. I would recommend going to this museum even if you are not int he vicinity of Dayton. I drove out from New Jersey, and it was worth the trip!

The only disappointment was that the XB-70 Valkyrie was not on display. Apparently that hangar has not yet been built. When that is completed, I may have to go back!

The thing I liked about this museum was that all of the displays and written information was very matter-of-fact, without a lot of interpretation from some lefty history professor about what it all means. I remember looking at a display of an atomic bomb, and the caption explained that it was the casing of an actual atomic bomb, similar to the one dropped on Nagasaki, that had been dimilitarized. The display left it up to the visitor to figure out what he thought about that.

32
posted on 04/11/2014 4:59:33 AM PDT
by Haiku Guy
(Health Care Haiku: If You Have a Right / To the Labor I Provide / I Must Be Your Slave)

Guns drawn and slapping handcuffs on them was "appropriate"? I don't think so.

Well, think about it.

The police are looking at a vehicle that is behaving suspiciously, and on a license plate check, it comes up as stolen. What do you expect them to do?

Now, the police have to realize there is always a possibility that the database is wrong, and the vehicle was not stolen. But if it is on the list of stolen vehicles, it probably is stolen. You have to figure that the list is right more often than not, right?

So, if the vehicle was stolen, would there have been anything wrong with following the procedure for a high risk traffic stop? Job #1 on a high risk traffic stop is to control the situation and eliminate the possiblity that the occupants of the vehicle, who you figure at a minimum are probably car thieves, can resist. So you stop the car and gunpoint, remove the occupants, secure them (with handcuffs), and then check the registration.

36
posted on 04/11/2014 5:08:34 AM PDT
by Haiku Guy
(Health Care Haiku: If You Have a Right / To the Labor I Provide / I Must Be Your Slave)

A witness had called security to report that the family was acting suspiciously, peering into various cars in the museums parking lot. Hill told police she and her 8-year-old grandson Aaron were checking out license plates around the lot to see how far some visitors had traveled. My son was excited to see different state license plates, especially the Alaska plate he saw on the way in, 31-year-old Wendy Hill told police. We drove the lot to see if he missed any before we left to go home. That was when we were stopped.

Message to the Slaves: Don't teach your children to be intellectually curious. Teach them to obey!

The Air Force Museum is just fantastic. If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Dayton, you really should stop by. I believe they open at 8am 7 days a week, not sure what time they close, and it's free.

ditto the museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola.... Thanks for the heads up.

Also, don't pass up the tours of the back lots. Pensacola and Dayton each have a version. The Air Force tour takes you through the shops where restoration is done and upcoming projects are stored. I was there a couple of years ago and they had a B-17 ball turret that looked as if it had just come off the assembly line!

I can see being cautious on the approach and asking them out of the vehicle while you and your guys figure out what’s going on, but there’s an awful lot of “mights” and “coulds” in there to be immediately treating them as violent criminals. I’ve been in their shoes before, in far more dangerous grounds than Wright-Patterson AFB, and I’m not understanding why there’s apparently zero on-site judgment being used. It sounds like they reverted to some battle drill and didn’t bother analyzing the situation beyond what some database told them.

Anyone in the military who’s had to sit through getting their paperwork updated in S1 should know you can’t trust a database any farther than you can throw the SAN that hosts its data.

Some context might help here ....Sounds like this happened 2 days after the latest Ft Hood shooting, so it’s understandable that they were extra sensitive to anything out of the ordinary or a little suspicious.

I can see being cautious on the approach and asking them out of the vehicle while you and your guys figure out whats going on, but theres an awful lot of mights and coulds in there to be immediately treating them as violent criminals.

If they were being treated as violent criminals, there would be a passage in there about how they were thrown to the ground, a knee placed on their back, were cuffed behind the back, and held down until the matter was resolved. If that had happened, I think the poster would have chosen to excerpt those parts of the article.

It sounds to me like a lot of discretion was used here, and this family was treated a lot better than somebody would have been if they looked more like your typical violent criminal. But discretion only goes so far. If you are on a military base in what is presumed to be a stolen vehicle, you can expect to be handcuffed.

50
posted on 04/11/2014 5:45:30 AM PDT
by Haiku Guy
(Health Care Haiku: If You Have a Right / To the Labor I Provide / I Must Be Your Slave)

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.